


Not Upon Human Speech

by notearchiver



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-21 15:52:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9555950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notearchiver/pseuds/notearchiver
Summary: The Ten Rings give Tony Stark a second task: fix the Soldier. Tony intends to do much more than that.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [araydre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/araydre/gifts).



> _…and their reputation—for they have one—does not depend upon human speech._  
>  —E.M. Forester, A Passage to India
> 
> Contains oblique reference to torture.

The day after they tell him to build a bomb—scratch that—the day after he agrees to pretend to make them a bomb, Tony is woken not by Yinsen's gentle shake, but by the bang of the door opening and the snap of a gun being loaded. He scrambles to sit up and pulls the battery close.

The leader is there along with a few other men. All have their guns pointed at the open door, and one of them is barking orders to someone on the other side of the threshold. Tony looks to his left, expecting Yinsen to be sitting on his cot, ready to translate for him, but there is no one there. He is alone with his captors.

"Tony Stark, I have a job for you." Tony's attention snaps back to the leader, who is lazily waving a handgun in his direction. "We have need of a repair job, and since you have already been so accommodating," there is laughter, "you will surely help us with this."

Tony feels jittery; it is as if his anxiety has turned into ten gallons of coffee coursing through his system.

"Sure, why not? Not like I have anything else to do," he says. He feels is nonchalant even knowing he is one bullet away from dead. Not like he hasn't been close to dead just a day ago. "What is it?"

The leader says something, and a man marches through the doorway. Marches, because there is no other way to describe the precise walk of a man with five guns trained on him.

"The Soldier's arm is in need of repair. You will fix it." The leader motions at the man. "Soldier, present your arm."

Tony shakes his head. These guys are crazy. "I'm no doctor. I can't—"

The man pivots and holds out his left arm and _shit_. Is man the right word? Tony doesn't know. Because the arm is bright. The metal glints in the soft light and he swears it's rippling. Except metal can't move like that. Except—there's a whirr and Tony leans as far forward as he can without leaving the cot—except it can because the arm is adjusting.

Or at least part of it.

From the wrist downward the metal is bent, the thumb so mangled it's been folded in half and flattened. Whatever happened to this guy, whoever happened to this guy, had some serious weaponry.

"You see, Tony Stark, you can do it." The leader hands the gun to the man, who instantly brings it up and points it at Tony's head. "You have seven hours to fix the Soldier. He will see to it that you don't mess up."

With that, the men file out, door clanging shut behind them.

Tony rubs his face, no doubt only smearing the grime further, and stands up. With a gun pointed at him, the only thing to do is work on the arm. He can work on escaping afterwards.

"Hey, cyborg-man-thing, take a seat at the bench, will you?" he says, pointing at the bench in the center of the room. Perhaps the soldier will blow his head off for impertinence and Tony won't have to deal with fixing that thumb, because that thing hurts his head just by contemplating how to reconstruct it with the rudimentary tools he has.

But the soldier just walks backward to the bench and sits down, placing arm on the table with his palm up. The reticulated fingers whirr but don't move.

"Great, so," Tony gets up and hauls his battery with him to the table, "what's up? You speak English?" He busies himself gathering pliers, a hammer, a chisel, and a screwdriver. What the fuck had happened to the hand? How was it even on this person?

"Yes."

Tony nearly drops the pliers. He studies the soldier's face, but the man is inscrutable, lips sealed as if he had never spoken.

"What's your name? Good to know the name of who I'm working on. Get to know my patient and all." Tony knows he's rambling, but if he just keeps him talking…

"You will comply and work on the arm." The soldier cocks the gun in emphasis.

"Got it. Not a man for words," Tony says. He reaches out to feel the arm, but stops, fingers hovering over the palm. When the soldier nods, Tony begins to inspect the damage.

The plates have been shoved together. Tens of miniature pieces of metal—and it's a metal Tony has never seen before and won't that be interesting to think about later?—are crimped and folded over each other. It was probably elegant once, but no more. It's a Bugatti put through a trash compactor, then reassembled by a carpenter. It's fucked up, in other words.

Tony can't help himself.

"Who did this?"

The soldier glances at the door. He says nothing, but Tony remembers the troughs of water and the pain of the battery flickering in his chest, and his heart—his goddamned heart that barely functions properly—clenches.

Seven hours is too little time to properly fix the plates—and god knows what sort of wiring is in that palm—but he can try. The soldier cyborg-man-thing may be holding a gun at his head, but it's at the orders of the men who ruined his other limb.

Tony searches for a way to open the palm, and he thinks that perhaps—just maybe—he has found a way out of the caves.


End file.
